every story has a beginning. . .

[Grizzix]

i just thought i\'d throw out this question. what got everyone started with the painting/gaming hobby? i used to work at a paintball field in the area and we decided to open up a shop in the downtown area near the university. not long after we opened we had this guy coming in quite a bit and as it turns out he owned a gaming shop two doors down. we all started hanging out and pretty soon we all got into paintball and gaming. about a year later i got married and my hours changed at work. i figured it was easier to find time to paint than it was to play paintball so i pretty much dropped it. i still get to play a few times a year but nothing like i used to. thats my story, whats yours. . ?

 

[Sand Rat]

The immortal DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, in 1978. Bought my first mini for $1.00 later that year. Still have that figure - course its now in 6 peices, but I still got it.

 

[Mungo Zen]

What is it with painters/hobbiests and paintball. Everywhere I go there are miniature painters who play paintball, and vice versa....

As for why I started, I have no idea, I was 8. I think it was something to do with one of the guys that ran the Dragon Lance campaign I was in got some free mini\'s and I got some. I painted them with my Testor\'s model paints (I was big on airplanes, but god I was horrible at building them).

It wasn\'t until I was 12 and I bought the first Citadel colour box set that I had better paints. In the following years I fell in love with GW 40k stuff and bought all of it that I could. At 18 I moved to Vancouver about 2 blocks from the local GW and the rest, is history...

EDIT___________
It just struck me, I recently got back into painting minis after a girlfriend induced hiatus. Anyway, I now live again, 2 blocks from a GW....

 

[Grizzix]

Painting little people with a little brush, painting big people with a bug gun. its hand in hand i guess :bouncy: i also played a lot of D&D when i was a kid but didnt get into minis till a few years ago.

 

[No Such Agency]

I\'m not even sure I remember. I played a bit of D&D with friends in grade school, but never very seriously (I was put off the game by a bunch of mean-spirited rules lawyers in grade 7). I probably saw the minis at a comic book/hobby store, and thought \"Hey, I could paint those with my Testor\'s enamels!\" lol I was so happy to hear that I wasn\'t the only one who got his start with those little glass bottles and a jar of foul-smelling thinner!

 

[Nelson]

I was introduced to the hobby by my friend Evan, and I really started to like it. It was a tribute to our friendship that I even tried it, as I had (ironically) always disparaged lassmates who \"fought little toy soldiers\" It turned out that he got bored of it pretty quickly, and I just kinda grew into it. I think the first time i seriously considered painting instead of just gaming was when I saw Coolminiornot for the first time (no joke) Holy epiphany, Batman! c

 

[darthfoley]

I got my start from playing D&D as well.

I actually still have my first two minis painted all those years (18) ago...and I keep threatening to post a pic up here...

In fact...I think I\'ll go do that...
http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=54097

 

[Herb the bitter]

Originally posted by No Such Agency

\"Hey, I could paint those with my Testor\'s enamels!\" lol I was so happy to hear that I wasn\'t the only one who got his start with those little glass bottles and a jar of foul-smelling thinner!

I began with Testor\'s enamels too. Ahhh the memories. Sure my painting\'s not much better, but at least my brushes live longer. lol

 

[tabithatan]

I visit this store to get my dnd stuff and I see ppl painting at a table and the owner gives me a free plastic orc and says... why not try....

thats how I got started......I was taught mostly by this gal who was slightly more talented than most of the guy painters in this field at that time... but we have since lost contact and I have no idea if she is painting, cos i dun see any minis posted anywhere with her distinctive style.

I still have the plastic orc... I never finished it.... cos er... orcs dun appeal to me.....heh

 

[Valander]

D&D for me, too

Like many others, I got my first figures due to playing D&D. I remember, it was an old Grenadier \"Denizens\" or some such box, that had an assortment of monsters in it. This was about 1979-80 or so.

I painted a couple of them with Testors enamels, and thought it was great! Eventually, I read a couple of painting articles (I think in Dragon), and tried using ceramic and/or craft paints. Thought they were better than Testors, so did that for a while.

Got out of painting for several years, then back into it, then out of it again. I\'ve been most steady at painting since moving up to Seattle about 9 years ago or so, and got into 40K for a while.

Now, I don\'t play 40K anymore (hated the new edition of the rules), and only occasionally play other games. Mostly, I paint for painting\'s sake, and only for about the last 3 years have I tried to actually become a \"good\" painter.

 

[Greymane]

I became what I am today in 1981 whilst we waited for my cousins birthady to get D&D, we collected mini\'s I had a dwarf \'army\' he had orcs someone else had gnolls etc and we developed a simple d6 based game to battle with ( did I invent warhammer ?lol). I still have a lot of old mini\'s including some real horrors and multiple horrors as when we first played we thought you had to have ALL the Mini\'s for all the monsters in keep on the borderlands we never found an owlbear so that never turn up.
From there I went Ad&D runequest , car wars, traveller,paranoia et al
My crew were all good artists , me I coudln\'t and still can\'t draw, but I was the best painter and did 90% of the mini\'s.

 

[AlexDaKid]

I remember going to London when I was like 7 and seeing a shiny box called the skeleton horde. I saved up every shiny penny I had until we went back up to london again and bought that damn skeleton horde!!! That Xmas my parents bought me Warhammer and the rest is history!

 

[Mosch]

A friend wanted to play Warhammer 40K with me (he plays for several years now) and I agreed.

Somewhat boring, isn\'t it?

 

[Gypsy]

My brother used to play D&D and paint his characters. On my 12th birthday or something when I started playing The Black Eye, he gave me all his painting stuff(does anyone remember the old glass Citadel bottles?) and minis. That\'s about it. Extremely exciting.

 

[latinking]

I started in this hobby playing D&D with my friends many years ago. One of them came to a gaming sesion with some minis and I started painting. The first minis I painted looked horrible, and when I started the Univ, I had less and less time to paint and playand finally l I stopped painting.

But a few years ago, I found a job in which I have many free time. I started looking for some info about painting, pics, etc and re-starated my long time abbandoned painting hobby.

Rob.

 

[supervike]

many moons ago....

I had been fascinated by scale models since as far as I can remember. My father had a model of one of the Apollo rockets, and although I thought it was very cool, it was the miniature astronauts that really held my attention.

By the time I hit grade school I had a few models (such as an aircraft carrier). By the time I reached junior high the little town I lived in (population 2000) got a hobby shop. The lady in there mostly sold railroading stuff, but had a pretty good selection of military models. That is when I discovered the 1/35 scale stuff, but again it was the soldiers that really fascinated me.

Some where in there I read the Lord of the Rings, and got a copy of Dungeons and Dragons for Christmas. It was about then I started seeing the little lead lumps of wonderment.

I bought a few of the Ral Partha things, and the Grenadier Giant Skeleton Rhino, but things really started getting out of hand when I discovered Citadel. My first mini from that company was an ogre, and I still think he is among my favorites

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=24982

Remember, these were the days before the internet, so finding these things in a small midwestern town was quite an effort. I discovered White Dwarf magazine, and immediately subscribed (thats when it still shipped right from England) The only Games Workshop store in America was in Baltimore, and I ordered quite a few from there.

The luster of the hobby kind of died away, until the internet became widely available, and E-bay became an addiction.

Now it has surpassed hobby and become obsession. Still haven\'t played a single game of Warhammer, but as soon as I get all these armies painted...look out!

 

[stumpkiller]

My husband and I were in a hobby store one day, He was looking for, he didn\'t know what, but had decided he needed a hobby that could be done at home. He had done a few models as a kid (car, plane,etc.), but didn\'t like how they turned out. We went down the wh isle, and he spotted this box of little army dudes in this weird (but kinda cool) looking armor, and it had paints too. he bought it, we both put some together, and both tried to paint them. Well, that was the last time he did more than primer and a basecoat for painting. We both do conversions, but he leans more towards clean-cut goodguys, and I like doing terrain, and had a lot of fun doing my muties. lol

 

[Dragonsreach]

Well.....Way back in the 1960\'s I started making models (Airfix, BADLY), I progressed into Historex Napoleonic figures in the early 70\'s and continued painting, well up into the very early 80\'s.
Round about then I got heavily into photography and figures dropped by the wayside.
(The good mini\'s I\'ve lost over the years is almost hearbreaking. I had a 90mm Hinchcliffe French Dragoon sat at a table with a \"Dear John\" letter, cost me about £12 back in the late 70\'s. Value now ?? ?? ?? I left it at my mothers when I got married and she\'s thrown it out )
When I moved down to the Blackpool area, I started looking for something to read during the dead hours of nightshift and found \"Dragon\" magazine. Next step TSR range of Forgotten Realms books, Picked up a couple of Mini\'s from GW in Preston. (This was way back in the day when they also stocked some Ral Partha Dragons as well) Met up with the guy who is now my best friend and 40K games started. The rest is history and lots of paint under the bridge, and lead in the bloodstream.....lol

 

[wiccanpony]

days of yore

:innocent:“Men + collage + D&D........not necessary in that order

and the begging that insured when I played with “MY” nicely painted minis........what can I say, I loved the flattery

 

[Calavera]

It all began with some friends showing off their painted Ork minis outside in the summer of 2002, I was twelve and liked those Orkz greatly. Then I saved up some money and bought a paint set with spacemarines and 9 paints and practiced on my friend\'s Orks.

I had gone to some hobby classes at school when eight and built a die-cast Ferrari Testarossa and a space shuttle. But the teachers who were tutoring us knew nearly nothing more than we did. Had no idea of mould lines, we twisted all plastic componets out of the sprues and stuff like that. And we used cheap enamels to paint the models